Daring Bakers: Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream

I grew up in a home surrounded by a garden. Just outside the window of my bedroom there was, and still is, a big hazelnut tree. simple branches during the winter, but a lot of leaves from spring! It's one of my favourite tree, not because is beautiful or anything, but simply because it witnessed a lot of what was going on in my life! I used to do everything in my bedroom, except eating and watching tv :)
I remember entire afternoons spent picking up hazelnuts from the ground, together with my dog... I remember entire afternoons eating them too! :)
And I remember one of our dogs eating them with much pleasure! He was cracking the shells with his teeth and eating the hazelnut inside, all happy for the compensation of his efforts!
All this to state that hazelnut were part of my everyday late summer life for all my childhood!
Since I don't live any more with my parents hazelnut appear in our home only during Christmas time. A big Italian tradition is to end every meal during Christmas and New Year celebrations with a dish filled with nuts, to crack them while chatting around the table or playing cards...
So I wan very pleased when I saw this new Daring baker recipe!!!

And the final result was astonishing! I made it for the 60th birthday of my dad and all my family was superpleased! My aunts and uncles were all happy :)

Daring bakers make the world happy :)

PS: I know the picture is not up to the normal standards, but we were in a crowded restaurant and you know how people react when you take picture of food, don't you? But it shows the layers :)

PS2: I know it's 1 moth I do not update the blog, I know I haven't yet finished the Morocco Series, but I started a new job and I still have to find a routine... But I will! :)

Daring Bakers: Lemon Meringue Pie

Ah, the American classic, the one you see in every diner in American movies! The sumptuous, meringue pie with a bright yellow cream filling!!!
When I read what the new challenge would be I was really excited!!! Jen, the Canadian Baker made a wonderful choice!
I began to read the recipe and I was a bit struck: water and not milk in the cream?
But, as usually with our daring bakers recipes, everything worked! Water in the cream, yes, as it's lighter, and with so much lemon you do not even notice it!
The lemon scent and flavour was perfect! I do not know if it was because I used organic lemons from Sorrento, the best lemon you can find in Europe, but it was the right balance of tangy and sweet!

The friends that ate it were very pleased! And me too, even if I would preferred a harder meringue, but that's all my fault: I'm always afraid of burning meringue!!!

Daring Bakers: Yule Log

I know, I'm late, but I had permission from Ivonne, as I spent Christmas at my in laws, whom live in the French countryside, in Aveyron, near Roquefort (actually more near Saint Affrique, but Roquefort is a bit more known! Or at least its stinky cheese is!) and they do not have any internet connection, either in the house or in the near by villages! So I had permission to publish everything when I was coming back! And here I am!
I did the yule log for a little party among friends with whom I share the office, the 15th December.
I was quite afraid: the yule log (or Bûche de Noël) is a great nightmare for my French family (in Italy we don't have it as a tradition, so nobody ever attempt to do it!). The grandma of my husband try to do it for her newly wed first Christmas and failed, badly failed! For a French is a real disgrace to fail in the kitchen! (of course there are French absolutely incapable of cooking anything, but they are rare!) We do not really know what went wrong, if the chiffon cake was overcooked or the cream with too little butter, or because she put it in the barn instead of the already stuffed fridge... May be the latter, but it's many many years they are telling me this horrifying story... No wonder I was afraid!
But nothing bad happened! On the contrary, it was a big success!
I love making every single part of it, eve if I wasn0t really pleased how my butter cream turned out: to airy... But that was sure my fault: I probably over mixed the white and the butter, turning the white a bit runny...

Great recipe!!!

Check out the others too!

Daring Bakers: Cinnamon rolls

I have to say I love Cinnamon rolls. In general. Always. They are good, that’s it!
And then I saw this month challenge of the Daring Bakers I was happy, really!
You have to know that every daring baker take turn to host the monthly event. So every month we have a different host (this month is Marce!). The fact is that most of the hosts are Americans, so the recipe they give us are with American ingredients. And as we cannot all be Julia Child, and adapt the whole French cuisine to the American public, I sometimes have problems with the ingredients. Basic ingredients are simple to find, but for example you have to bear in mind that the average plain American flour has more gluten than the average Italian one. Or that yeasts are different.
This month the recipe was featuring a instant yeast, that, in fact, it must be different from the one sell in Italy. Because that’s the only reason I can give to the facts that my rolls were good, but not really puffy… Maybe with fresh yeast would have more soft…

But I loved them anyway! And I had fun, that’s for sure, and even all the people that ate them had fun!!!

Mirror cake: I couldn't...

This time I couldn't... And I feel a traitor...
I can give you all the excuses in the world, because I've made it, 2 weeks ago, but I couldn't dare taking a picture of it: it was all wrong...
What the hell am I speaking about???
I'm speaking about this month Daring Bakers challenge, Strawberry mirror cake.
It was my first with a mirror cake, and I felt challenged, and so happy!
Everything went perfectly well, until the last passage...
I made the sponge cakes, I made the Bavarian cream, I made the strawberry jelly... And it was so red I didn't even need to colour it!!!
The cake was in the fridge, and the strawberry jelly was getting cooler... But I was tired, and it was SO hot, I couldn't wait any more the jelly to get cooler... So I poured the jelly on the cake while it was still warm... I let your imagination to picture with what I ended up: a complete mess!

You see why we HAVE TO follow the recipe in every single step??? Because when I didn't, mess came out! And so I lost my first bonus. I will lost the second bonus next month, because I'll be on holiday...
And so I have to dare baking every single month, until the end of my days...
And it doesn't look bad at all!!! :-)
Sorry Peabody if I screw your challenge! I've just seen your creation and it looks amazing! Better: awesome!

Daring Bakers: Real Honest Jewish Purist's Bagels

Wow! Always challenging our daring bakers contests!!! I made bagels just once in my life, few month ago, and I was ready to try a new recipe and give it another chance to improve!
And this recipe, even if in mammoth proportions, is wonderful! Luckily I made them for friends coming over, so they were just enough!
How did it go?
First of all, as the rules weren't allowing the use of a mixer, I knead by hand the dough.
So, let's think, since how many years I haven't knead by hand??? To many for sure! Kneading is a wonderful exercise, for mind, muscle and soul. When I'm stressed, or sad, or I don't fill all my self, I make something yeasty and fluffy, but I don't knead any more... Mainly because three years a go I kneaded so hard a bread that my wrists began to hurt, so I began to use the mixer. But now, years later and old stress free, I knead again, and I'm so happy!!!
Remember, when life is hard and you don't know what to do, KNEAD AND BAKE!!! (this could be the opening line of the Daring Bakers hymn, what you think???)...
The rest of the execution when smooth as a sailing boat on a sunny, light wind day! I enjoyed every single step, every single ironic line written by our hosts...
I had just one tiny problem: they are so ugly, but so so so ugly that I'm a bit ashamed to let you see pictures of them, but they tasted much much better then Nigella's...
But, you know, life too isn't always beautiful! But always tasty, that' a given!!! ;-)
Bagels for ever and ever!

Daring bakers rock, rule and we are cool!!! (Does it work enough as a rhyme? Maybe no...)

Daring Bakers: Saint Honorè

When last month I've seen all around the internet a wonderful tower of chocolate crepes (something I'm dreaming/dreading to make since ages), I knew I wanted to be part of this exclusively club!!! So I've pulled some strings of well known V.I.P. food bloggers ;-) and the next day I was part of it... And just in time to discover the May challenge: Saint Honorè!!!!!!!!!
I run to the kitchen, looked at my husband and said: "I'm afraid! I have to make Saint Honorè!!!" He looked at me in disbelief while I was telling him the whole story, and he began to refer to us, Daring Bakers, as "the crazy people on the net that bake"... And at the end is what we are: find me somewhere else so many people that are all exited to bake, all together, from the same recipe, a Saint Honorè, and publishing it on the same day... Find me a "secret" place where all this people (and this month we are almost 50!), from all over the world, meet and chat about the making of one of the most known cake in the world, and put in the open if they made a mistake, if they had a bad time or a good time, and seek for help, advices, support... And they get all that!!!
I've made my Saint Honorè (the first and probably the last) the weekend after the under covering of the May challenge: I had some friends coming over to dinner, so I thought it was the best time to try something so scary!
I was honestly scared by the task, especially the decoration part of it, as I'm not much of a decorator...
Anyway, let's go back to the beginning...
I've decided, as the rules permit me to, to use ready made puff pastry: sorry, but puff pastry is one of the biggest fears I have in baking and I need more than that to get over it!
So, having already set the problem puff pastry, I could concentrate on the rest. I've already made cream puffs in the past, and that gave me to much confidence, and I screw the first batch, making the dough too liquid, so I made it again, and this time it turned out nicely...
The cream was ok, as I have my own way to make cooked cream (and sauces in general): I use a hand mixer directly in the cooking cream, so you can cook it for shorter time at high temperature, it doesn't stick to the bottom, and you don't have to keep stirring all the time...
The assembly was ok... Until I arrived to the caramel part...
I admit it: I'm a caramel challenge person... I'm afraid of it, I don't have a caramel thermometer, it just never caramelized in my hand...
Ok, I'm a bad daring baker: I've used my husband! He made caramel for me, and it was a wonderful caramel!!! All this while the pan I've used to make it in the first place was doomed in the limbo of caramel sticky pans...
The overall product was a success! They all loved it, they all eat it twice!
The cream was very very good, and while at the beginning I was a bit sceptic for the jelly, it was absolutely necessary, and I thing I will put jelly in other creams too from now on...
I'm so so happy to be part of the Daring Bakers: if it wasn't for you I would never made a Saint Honorè!
And now I can't wait to see what the June challenge will be!!!!!!!!!!!

Daring bakers rule and rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!